having the BYOND staff monitor and ban art theft would be even more troublesome than removing rips simply because they would have to be extremely careful and sure of the theft before they do something as severe as banning, and if art theft is as widespread as you all claim then they'd never get anywhere with it

DYS wrote:

The only solution to it would be to be overly oppressive to the members of this site, which wouldn't work as far as I can tell.

You're right. Going fascist on the situation is just going to drive everyone away eventually and, as Zaole and Chris pointed out, it's too much content to even begin play cops.

IMO (and I could be totally wrong): to some extent the overall bad rep has less to do with negative things like theft or flames (I think these things are an internet thing and not just a BYOND thing - like some here have said) and more to do with the lack of positive things.

BYOND is pretty isolated. The programming doesn't really mesh with outside langs and tech, our artists don't spend a whole lot of time in joint or -ation, our sound and writing guilds see less action than nun with scabies, etc. I think if more people did what AC tries to do and engage other communities to show them that not everyone here is a tool, we'd go a long way to helping the community's image.

Of course, that would mean more people would hafta have the balls/ovaries to stand up and say they're from BYOND (and not just make a single post saying: 'hai gaiz! try byond! its the neatestest...' and then leave). Nothing to eSneeze about.

Making great games (or really finishing any games - not that I should talk) would help, too.

Though nothing can really be achieved, as of yet anyways, sheding some light on it would [hopefully] change the way to some people (though that'd most likely never happen).

Oh, yeah - I agree. Talking about it isn't bad at all (as a matter of fact - we should be talking more about how the 'outside world' views us - and engaging that world.) At some point, tho, someone - without knowing it - will make the last post in this thread and either people will do something about it or they won't.

But, no - I'm glad you brought it up!

Sheesh even as I post people are already trying to ignite a flame war in this very post, it's ridiculous.

Sorry if I had anything to do with that.

MM: You misunderstand me. I should've clarified that point.

When I say mesh with outside languages and tech - I mean it doesn't entirely play well with other programming languages (domain specific or not) and that it doesn't allow the programmer to integrate software that's already out there - not that it isn't a good platform for learning other languages, syntactically similar, or even a good language itself.

Don't get me wrong, it's coming along in that direction with mySQL manipulation and DLL support (and javascript and HTML have always been there - even if in IE5) - but it could be better. Python integrates well with C++ as does Lua saving the machine state between calls. PHP and JS go hand and hand with both having native XML support. Etc.

I simply meant to say that programmers from BYOND and outside programming communities might not have much reason to talk or much common ground to interact on.

DM itself is a fine language.

That's enough out of me, tho. I said what I had on my mind.

Zaole wrote:

Here's what I still don't get: why would they be so upset if their artwork is stolen?

- it's a possibility which every pixel artist will always have to face no matter where you go or what you do

- it's very easy to prove that you're the original creator

- when others take your work and try to put it into their own game, it's not feasible to steal ALL of your artwork (for several reasons), so it looks poor and mismatched-- they gain nothing from stealing your artwork

- if anything, it's flattery that they like your artwork so much that they'd like to use it themselves (regardless of their immature methods)

I don't see how they get negatively impacted by such "theft" other than a sore butt.

by the way, Tayoko's a wonderful artist and has created art inside of BYOND. I don't see his icons sprouting up in Naruto games or poor quality mockups of the game it exists in. reasons being? is it just maybe possible that the whole "THEY STEAL MY ARTWORK" accusations are way blown out of proportion, and it doesn't happen nearly as often as suggested?

1. Yes, I think all people realize this. The problem with BYOND is it seems it become acceptable and okay to do so. Art Theft (Well, theft in general the root cause of all of this) is pretty prevalent around BYOND.

2. Yes, I agree.

3. This is bull. It's incredibly easy to steal ALL of a game's graphics thanks to the .rsc extractor with just one click.

4. Perhaps in some cases. No so much in others.

5. Tayoko is a bad example. He hasn't posted that much actual game art, and Enfecta as far as it's icon use goes is pretty niche, though I wouldn't be surprised if someone used one of his aliens or something for a monster in a game. If you really want to see were art theft shines on this site, it's mostly stuff like general turfs such as trees, grass, rocks, and base icons, and then anime stuff always get's stolen.

The problem isn't with art theft (it's just most prevalent), it's just the whole general population of BYOND. They're all younger kids who would rather take than make, and regretfully it's incredibly easy to steal art on byond. This isn't so much the case with programming because currently as it stands these people can't get the code unless you actually choose to give it out.

There isn't any really good way to deal with this problem. It sucks too because of how tarnished BYOND's image is from it. No one respectable would want to come here if all it looks like is a bunch of thieves leeching off of everything, which is well what BYOND currently looks like. Just ask any community that actually knows about BYOND, and you'll find the same response.

edit: Well no, the best way to deal with the problem is we, as a community, moderate ourselves. It seems like Tom is slowly moving the site in that direction too with the guilds and now the rip reporting. We could force these people out of the search results, and the public eye. Maybe they'll wise up and try to make something themselves (which is ideally what we want), or they'll leave byond crying because they can't get any benefit out of their stolen game.

Maggeh wrote:

edit: Well no, the best way to deal with the problem is we, as a community, moderate ourselves. It seems like Tom is slowly moving the site in that direction too with the guilds and now the rip reporting. We could force these people out of the search results, and the public eye. Maybe they'll wise up and try to make something themselves (which is ideally what we want), or they'll leave byond crying because they can't get any benefit out of their stolen game.

The sad part is this site and community has the potential to be so much more then it really is, but day by day it just seems to get worse instead of better. You're right about us "moderating ourselves" though, we should all try to do that (even if only a handful of us do, it's what we should strive for; the all part.).

We, BYOND, shouldn't be viewed as a community that relies on ripped content or disrespectful and meaningless arguing (which alot of us should be above). I can only hope [hope] this post and the comments that followed from everyone changes some views on others. That's all we can do when it comes down to it, hope.

I blame our public schools.

Death Any wrote:

Im sure no one really cares about your email or how you look

Says the guy who bothers to post about it.